Television

Tuesday, May 3, 2011

Texas to Carry Out Today’s Execution with New Drug

Cary Kerr, if executed later today, will be the first Texas death row inmate executed using pentobarbital in place of sodium thiopental as one of three drugs used to carry out executions in the Lone Star state.

Kerr is anything but contrite as he awaits execution. He denies he killed Pamela Horton. With toxicology tests showing a blood-alcohol level approaching 0.50 — six times the legal limit for drivers — there's little dispute Horton was drunk on the night she was murdered.

Kerr said he and Horton, a former neighbor in a trailer park, had visited a couple of bars, wound up at his place, had sex and then fell into an argument. Kerr said she left his home alive.

"I've never denied being with her," he told the Associated Press, adding that he told police everything he knew. "And yet here I am sitting on death row." In 2003, prosecutors said Kerr took advantage of Horton's condition, raped, beat and strangled her and then dumped her body on a street in Haltom City, about five miles north of Fort Worth.

From death row, Kerr said he was "half drunk" after consuming "about 18 beers." Asked if he was so drunk that he couldn't remember killing Horton, he told the Associated Press: "Oh, no. That's not possible. I don't see how anybody can do that."

He said detectives focused their investigations on him after he told them that the pair had argued."They didn't look at nobody. They looked at me and me only," Kerr said.

Evidence showed authorities found pieces of Horton's clothing, some of the items severely torn, at Kerr's home. Jurors also heard from two of Kerr's ex-wives, a girlfriend and a former neighbor who testified about his violence toward them. Kerr pleaded guilty to assault with intent to do bodily harm in a 1999 case, and was sentenced to a year in jail. "They just made up all that stuff and the jury bought it hook, line and sinker," Kerr told the Associated Press.

About Matt

An analysis of crime and punishment from the perspective of a former prosecutor and current criminal justice practitioner.
The views expressed on this blog are solely those of the author and do not reflect the opinions or postions of any county, state or federal agency.